DEMOCRACY in Pakistan had a crisis-ridden and stunted childhood; it is now a much-abused and tortured adolescent afloat on a sea of uncertainty. Democracy is in doldrums. Will Pakistan recover and return to democracy and civil rule?
   A state born with religion as the basis of its nationhood, Pakistan seems to have never recovered from its dual identity. It remains split between an avowed theocratic identity and one of a secular democratic statehood.
   Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the founder, won a homeland for Muslims of Indian subcontinent in 1947. He had argued forcefully for a separate Muslim national identity, harped upon fear of Muslims becoming a sub-class in a Hindu majority India. He succeeded and won partition of India granted by the departing British.
   But Jinnah, essentially secular and rational, had no illusion about what that state would have to be. In his address to the newborn nation, he exhorted his countrymen, be they Muslims, Christians, Parsees or Hindus, to be Pakistanis (nationalists) first and shelve their respective religious identity aside. Jinnah had the foresight to know the new nation deeply divided by tribal, feudal, sectarian and ethnic affiliations would need singular national identity above all else.
   The independence of Bangladesh dealt a blow to the two-nation theory. It shocked the then military regime of Pakistan into yielding power. But the short spring of democracy was followed by a long winter of military rule.
   The hope that what was left of Pakistan would chart a new path of secular and liberal democracy ruled by popular will was rudely belied.
   Frequent interception of democratic rule by military dictators marred the political landscape. The growth of democratic institutions and processes was stunted.
   The failures of political leaders were many, marked not only by lack of vision but also by internal abuse and pursuit of selfish interests above those of the nation. They cynically invoked religion as an instrument within national politics. The perceived threat by a Hindu-dominated India remained an obsession. While India with its immense diversity forged ahead under leaders like Jawaharlal Nehru, Pakistan drifted in political squabble and squandered its opportunities. Doubts on the legitimacy of leaders lingered in public mind. Leaders lost their way and were discredited.
   It was in the vacuum of leadership that the army stepped in. As a disciplined force, charged with guarding the territorial integrity and sovereignty, the army came to assume a role larger than its ordinary mandate. To immense discredit of political leaders and parties, army rule became dominant for much of the fifty years since the first martial law of Ayub Khan.
   A country with huge potential and fine human resources remains strapped in bigotry, backwardness, poverty and now threatened by resurgent tribalism and sectarian intolerance.
   Democracy is in peril.
   The political arena is filled by competing rivals seeking personal aggrandisement who do not hesitate to enter into secret deals, making it appear as if Pakistan is their inherited fiefdom.
   Democracy failed in infancy not because the people of Pakistan deserved that.
   In a largely feudal society where many peasants and workers are virtually kept in bondage by their feudal lords, the task of giving them representation fell upon the few educated (Cambridge or Harvard) elites and an emerging middle class largely confined to urban Pakistan. They too failed.
   Some would like to see the failure of democracy as an accident unforeseen. But I would see it as something deeply rooted in the political cynicism compounded by feudal traditions to which many of its political leaders are bound. People are without access to the state for their rights and left without a just dispensation.
   True to established tradition, the current ruler Pervez Musharraf captured power through the backdoor, is determined to hold on to it come what may. Like his predecessors, he too came with the lofty motive to save Pakistan. He too promised early return to democracy.
   But the raids upon the judiciary and chasing opposition into hiding are grave insults to the nation and are brazen deeds if not barbaric; these bear no semblance of a modern state. Yet, with astounding chutzpah, Musharraf told the world press that ‘emergency’ was essential to hold free and fair elections and he had to impose emergency rule to save democracy from anarchy in Pakistan.
   The question is: Is democracy safe in the hands of those who kill to save? History proves those driven by a divine mission can be dangerously misled.
   Put it another way, did the people of Pakistan deserve the leaders they have been led by?
   The midnight coup in 1999 by military chief Musharraf dealt a severe blow to democracy. The ‘emergency’ rule promulgated on November 3, 2007, is yet another fresh assault and insult upon civilian rule and upon the people of Pakistan.
   Yet, there is a silver lining. It is not all doom and gloom. As history shows, the denial of popular aspiration for representation, rule of law, and social and economic progress cannot go on forever. One likes to put faith in the four pillars of democracy and good governance. A sovereign legislature, an independent judiciary, a free press, and a growing educated and connected middle class of professionals and technocrats could join forces and begin to regain control.
   These forces are beginning to stand up and refuse to obey the diktats of oligarchs or deceptions of the wheelers-dealers of power and pelf. The judiciary has already taken the lead. The press is struggling to remain free. The rest are restive.
   One hopes these forces will galvanise a string popular movement – something Pakistan has not seen for a long while.
   There are other portents of change. Benazir Bhutto is beginning to lose her once formidable sway; the mask seems to be coming off. She stands exposed at least to the intellectuals and the political elite, if not the masses. Her latest hard line attitude is suspect. That appears more as opportunistic posturing and not principled stand.
   Nor the ambivalence mixed with dithering by Nawaz Sharif earns respect. Both these stalwarts in fact might be ready to strike yet another ‘deal,’ at the prodding by an outside benefactor, for example the US. But such deals benefit the ‘benefactor’ and not Pakistan and its people.
   If Pakistan learnt anything from history, a benefactor more than likely would ditch its ally yet again. Remember the Afghan war against the Soviet occupation. Pakistan continues to pay the price while the real beneficiary walked away.
   It had never been in Pakistan’s abiding national interest to become the mercenary to fight somebody else’s war; not even for the money and armour received in return.
   Informed observers did not fail to note how lukewarm the response of George Bush is on Pakistan’s latest crisis. The US needs Pakistan, needs Musharraf to be precise, to serve its own global interest. None should be deluded into believing the US has real concern for a strong independent democratic Pakistan.
   Pakistan’s deliverance from the perpetual crisis of democracy can come only through restoration of a viable democratic government. That government would not use its army to kill its own people in the name of war on extremism and terror. A stiff price has already been paid. More of the same would invite greater disaster not so much for Musharraf or his successor. Dictators come and go. So will Musharraf one day, possibly soon. But Pakistan and people shall remain.
   The present crisis is deep and disturbing unlike in the past. It opens a window to let in fresh stimulus to launch a decisive though not revolutionary (Pakistan might not be ready to go through a revolution) change. People across political, sectarian and social divides could come together and fight the common enemy within and those lurking at the fringes.
   Meanwhile, will democracy survive the fatal blow? Yes, it might because the throne of power is very shaky, very vulnerable. The classes with minimal vested interest such as the middle class, the educated and articulate professionals led by lawyers, teachers, students and workers could defeat the intrigues and deals concluded in secrecy.
   In the long run, popular leaders could expose the entrenched feudal class or keep at bay the self-appointed ‘saviours’ who indulge in exceeding their remit under the Constitution of Pakistan.
   Disorder and even anarchy could be creative in the end. The present crisis could well be one such. Will Pakistan miss this one too?

Sensitivities prevailing in a society at a given point have a restrictive impact on precision reporting of conflict or violence. The question is: Can the media remain truly independent of, and insensitive to, public sentiment when such sentiment either represents a sizeable portion of the media’s audience or when there is public consensus on a conflict, say, involving another country?
   Under the circumstances, you have to be damn brave to stick to the bookish maxim of reporting ‘truth and nothing but the truth.’ A more pragmatic resort to credibility with the audience generally comes to the rescue of the most upright editor. Patriotism takes charge from here, and you are as much part of the street frenzy dictating the monolithic angle to your stories as the most rightist media organ you’ve known.
   In Pakistan, as elsewhere in the region, we’ve all been part of this phenomenon off and on, and not just for fear of drop in public ratings. Patriotism, real or perceived, and when linked to an ongoing crisis, comes ashore roaring like a tsunami; it takes all in its killer sweep. You may, then, months or years later, rise from the ashes and dare to tell the truth, like McNamara did about the Vietnam War. He did so in 1996 because the fear of public outcry was a calculated risk then and not more than two decades before. Doing so while the war lasted would have saved many lives but the ego that entrenched America in the Vietnam War would have been sacrificed. Much to McNamara’s disappointment, America didn’t learn a lesson from that bloody episode, and a re-enactment of a similar policy is in progress in Iraq.
   The West’s war mongering over the Iranian nuclear issue is another such instance where society has a clear impact on how the media report the conflict in various countries. We live in a world where the bin Ladens and the Huntingtons have drawn battle lines between civilisations, poisoning the minds of their respective audiences and societies. The West’s desire for political supremacy, as compared to its preceding centuries’ battle cry of white supremacy is equally chilling and politically incorrect. Thus we have embedded journalists, both in the Muslim world and in the West, who see and report facts through the prism of the fiction that will supposedly further their causes.
   Many in the Muslim world see America’s war on terror as a war on Muslims. Thus, to counter the West’s onslaught, bin Laden’s self-proclaimed deputies have set out to recruit squads of Jihadis across the Muslim world – from Bosnia to Chechnya, from Afghanistan and Kashmir to Bali, you name it. If this is to continue over a period of time, entire societies will face the risk of being polarised beyond what we know and observe today.
   The process in Pakistan is well underway. Here’s a relatively free-for-all society sandwiched between a working democracy but a hostile India to the east, a volatile, largely tribal, and to many, occupied Afghanistan and an evangelist Islamic Iran to the west. The battle lines in today’s Pakistan are many, and the fronts overlap: between the religious and the secular, between the democratic and the autocratic, between Islamist militants and a westernised political elite, between the haves and the have-nots, between tribal authority and that of the state, between ethnic nationalists and the majority Punjabis, between the traditionally docile, shrine-visiting Muslims and the
   puritan Wahabis, between Sunnis and
   Shias.
   Imagine the sensitivities involved and expectations of the media amidst this multitude of conflicts and violence – in a society that’s going through transition from the medieval to the modern, while grappling with media tools that belong in a very post-modern world. Yes, society does dictate to, and sets limits on what the Pakistani media can and cannot, as opposed to what they should or should not, broadcast or publish.
   In recent months this has become more apparent. The proliferation of TV channels and FM radio stations has meant manifold more airtime for religious programming under a liberal Musharraf regime than under the Islamist Ziaul Haq back in the 1980s. Never before did we have religious preachers, from the conservative and the intolerant to the enlightened and the evangelist, gracing the prime time TV screens during the holy Islamic months of Ramadan, Rabiul Awwal and Muharram. Media coverage on other religious occasions now often translates into several days of airtime instead of religious programming hogging the prime time on the actual day of a festival.
   The handling of the Lal Masjid episode in July last, when a bunch of radical and heavily armed clerics were holed up inside an Islamabad mosque, was another such instance. The immense public interest in the unfolding, bloody drama forced the media to perpetually have running commentaries on the issue. While television covered the entire weeklong military operation live and blow by blow, front pages of newspapers were flooded with ambivalent analyses, where no one wanted to take a clear stance as to assigning blame. It was a full-blown bloody insurgency led by the radical clerics, but who would dare say that in so many words? Why? Because society wasn’t perhaps ready to hear the media passing a judgment because that would challenge the people’s religious sensibilities.
   Towards the end of the gory drama media organs were so overwhelmed by social pressure, whether it was real or perceived, that they donned the mantle of an intermediary between the rebel clerics and the government. Anchormen and women were seen going beyond the call of their profession to appear as if they were siding with the criminals, offering propositions to the government to accommodate requests for a safe passage for the militants holed up inside the mosque, despite the fact that the latter had torched public buildings, encroached on public land, terrorised the entire neighbourhood and even hijacked and got several innocent people killed in the process. Days after the military operation concluded and the public sentiment eased, the same media were able to
   debate the issue more logically and dispassionately.
   The May 12 violence on the streets of Karachi this year, in which dozens of political workers belonging to opposition parties died as a result of the city administration giving the ruling party goons a free hand, was another significant instance of society’s impact on media. The restoration of the chief justice of Pakistan suspended by General Musharraf was seen as a national cause espoused by millions nationwide and to which the national media, almost entirely headquartered in Karachi, gave wholehearted coverage.
   It continued doing so when the protesters and the chief justice came to Karachi despite the fact that the ruling MQM, known for its highhanded tactics vis-à-vis the media, had taken out a counter rally in the city the same day to condemn the chief justice and his supporters, successfully thwarting his entry into the city. In the process, whereas people were killed in the streets, news channel offices were also attacked by the ruling party sympathisers who saw the media operating out of their ‘territory’ as being hostile. But the media coverage of the chief justice’s cause did not stop. The reason, the media had its credibility on the line with a much larger national audience that did sympathise with the chief justice and not with the Karachi-based MQM and its politics.
   Lastly, media coverage leading to Benazir Bhutto’s return from self-imposed exile and the subsequent events surrounding it proved another important litmus test for society’s impact on media. The entire debate in TV studios over Bhutto’s return had focused on the corruption cases against her, the amnesty offered by Musharraf in a clandestine power-sharing deal and the West’s backing of Musharraf and of Bhutto. On the morning of Bhutto’s plane touching down in Karachi and the massive public reception she was set to receive by hundreds of thousands of her supporters who had come from across the country, the media made a swift U-turn. So much so that the reporters’ and the analysts’ tone and tenor seemed to resonate the Bhutto supporters’.
   The overnight sea change was brought about as a result of public support seen on the occasion. The media had not even suspected that Bhutto would still have so many followers after what embarrassingly seemed as their attempt in the preceding weeks at ‘destroying’ her. Here was ‘a silent majority,’ as it began to be dubbed, which reacted totally opposite to what the pundits had predicted. All talk of foul play on the part of Bhutto and Musharraf gave way to ready admiration for a leader whom the media had long dismissed as assuming discredited in the public eye. The terrorist attacks on her convoy within hours of her arrival home won her further sympathy with the media. By contrast, nobody remembered anymore the abortive attempt by Bhutto’s rival Nawaz Sharif to return to Pakistan, nor his swift, forced deportation to Saudi Arabia, barely five weeks before, because the people too had not taken much notice of it.
   The urban and the rural divide in Pakistan could explain the sharp difference seen between the extent to which media influences society and vice versa. The mass media, i.e. cable TV and FM stations largely remain a very urban phenomenon. They may at best influence the way urbanites feel and receive their information (read infotainment), but moulding the perceptions of the huge numbers, where one vote for one individual is concerned, remains the uncharted media territory in the un-cabled, rural Pakistan. So, where numbers are concerned, it is society, for now, that holds sway over the media.
   Did someone say that the media influenced society, and it did so unconditionally? I don’t think so.
   Murtaza Razvi, a senior editor of Dawn, Pakistan, presented the paper at a South Asian media conference in Dhaka in the last week of October.